Let Him Be
by Suite Sambo
Summary: The summer after the war, Harry and Severus find themselves recuperating at the same Wizarding resort, and Severus realizes he doesn't know Harry Potter at all. A story about healing, with an eventual mention of a H/S pairing.


**A/N:** Written for the Snape_Potter Summer 2014 Snarry challenge and originally published on the Snape_Potter communities on LJ/IJ/DW.

This is a story about healing, with eventual H/S (romance) but touched on only in the final paragraph.

Work Text:

Severus rests on a lounge chair in the shade of the palm trees, his view of the ocean unobstructed. The chair sits well back from the water, at the very edge of the private facility where he is summering. Summering, regaining his strength, recovering from the injuries that should have killed him. There's a privacy fence of sorts – a spell, a ward – that makes this little piece of heaven appear as an overgrown patch of beach grass cluttered with sharp stones and dead palm fronds.

He's not fond of the sun, and dislikes the sand, but he loves the ocean, and enjoys the sea breeze. He is strong enough – finally – to get himself out here each morning, to settle himself on his reserved chair, pull his journals and books from the canvas beach bag, and pile them on the little table at his left elbow.

He submits to the prescribed care, and to the amenable service.

Staff members bring him beverages and potions, serve him lunch, bring him a wide-brimmed hat and stand waiting at the edge of the warded area while he walks on the beach, on the packed sand at water's edge, fifteen minutes one direction, then back again, three times a day.

He doesn't know who arranged this therapeutic retreat, here at the dividing line between the civilised world and the edge of paradise, or who is paying for it, and really, he doesn't care. He has survived Voldemort. He has survived the Death Eaters. And in the end, he has survived the Ministry.

Pardoned. Absolved. Cared for.

If he never sees Hogwarts again, he will not cry. He's served his time, and when he gains his strength again he'll return to Spinner's End, and contemplate the years left him, and reinvent himself.

He doesn't often wonder about any of the others. He was in St. Mungo's long enough to learn what he needed, to overhear the mediwitches and healers, to submit to the Ministry interviews, to turn over the names of the dead in his mind.

On the eighth day of his stay, on a day when milk-white clouds form dragons in the sky, he finds Harry Potter asleep in a lounge chair not far from his own.

He stares at Potter for a long moment, considering why he is here and if it means anything. In the end, after careful contemplation, he decides that it means that Potter needs the sea breeze and time to rest and recover, with no demands upon him, and no well-meaning friends pointing him this way or that.

He settles back into his own chair, and picks up his book, and goes about his day.

ooOoo

He really knows very little about Harry Potter.

What Dumbledore told him. What he's seen himself, in the years Potter was his student. What he's stolen from his mind in those hateful Occlumency lessons.

But Potter, here, is another guest, another patient, like himself. After his initial shock at finding himself on forced medical leave with Severus Snape, he takes it in stride and treats him as he treats the other guests here. With respect. With consideration. He gives Severus his space.

Unlike Severus, Potter likes the sun.

He moves his chair away from the palms, sometimes fully in the sun, sometimes so that his face is shaded but the rest of his body takes in the rays. He sits, staring at the ocean. He writes letters. He reads. Severus, walking past him one morning before lunch to take his half hour walk, sees the seventh year textbooks piled up beside Potter's chair.

He has half a mind to pick them up and hurl them into the ocean. Doesn't the boy understand that no book will ever give him an education as valuable as what he learned during his year hunting horcruxes?

But he's not here to teach Potter, nor to redirect his life. He's not here for Potter in any way. He's here for himself, for his own recovery. Potter is incidental. Another wounded warrior. One of the lucky ones who, like Severus, miraculously survived to see another day.

ooOoo

Dinners are served in the dining room, with assigned seats that rotate weekly.

On Potter's second week in residence, he and Severus are assigned the same table.

They are anonymous here, both using assumed names, and no one seems to pay any mind to them. They are young, younger by far than the average guest here, and their tablemates are both elderly women, one from the Netherlands, the other from Australia.

It is second nature to lie.

Severus wonders at how easily the cover story pours from James Dursley's lips.

Quidditch player – Seeker. Head injury. Managers forcing him to recuperate. Would rather be flying, of course.

 _Of course._

Severus is Mortimer Gallows. Potter forces back a smile at the name, pushes peas about his plate waiting for Severus' story. Slashed by the tail of a Common Welch Green on the Romanian reserve while trying to draw blood for a health check.

Potter strangles a snort and shovels a bite of roast chicken in his mouth.

Severus glares at him haughtily. It's a game he plays well, pretended offence.

"Amused, Mr. Dursley? Don't tell me you're an expert on dragons? What – are they riding dragons instead of brooms in Quidditch matches nowadays?"

"Oh, no. Not at all." Potter hides a smile. "You wouldn't catch me dead on a dragon," he says, looking at Severus. Severus can almost see the shadow of the great white Gringott's beast in his eye. "It's just that you don't look like the type that works on the preserves."

"I learned my lesson and shan't be going back," Snape says, touching his neck lightly. The thick wrappings are gone at last, exposing the healing, jagged edges of the scar.

Potter's eyes narrow and he regards Severus a long moment. But if he reads anything more into the statement, if he wonders what Snape is really saying, he doesn't say, doesn't ask.

ooOoo

A week of dinners together passes, and another week begins.

Severus is getting better. He is made to eat on a regular schedule, healthy meals, local fruits and nuts and the freshest produce. He is slowly catching up on all the sleep he missed as Headmaster of Hogwarts. A sleepless job. A thankless job. A critical job. He has his strength back, and walks along the seashore several miles each day now. He wears a hat against the sun, a lightweight shirt, loose trousers, but his forearms are bare and tanned now, as are the top of his feet. He's only been here a month, and has a month yet to go, ample time to decide just exactly where he'll be going when he leaves.

Several weeks into Potter's stay, Severus knows more about Harry Potter than he has ever known, even after six years of seeing the boy nearly daily.

He sees Potter now with different eyes.

They have been nothing less than cordial, interacting as two strangers who have come upon the other and whose lives cross paths for a breath of time. Potter respects his space and in turn, he respects Potter's. What words they exchange are neutral, casual. Observations on the unusually high surf, praise for the fresh fruit cocktails served inside coconut shells, standing at nearly the same time to reposition their lounge chairs.

But what Severus now knows about Harry Potter he learns from observing him.

There are scars on his body – his arm, hand, even his chest. He seems to ignore them, to be unaware of them, making no move to hide or cover them.

Harry Potter is accustomed to scars. Potter's eyes are not like the eyes of the other guests here. They don't focus on his neck. They don't do a double take, sliding past and returning for another look.

He is cordial to the other guests and staff but he does not attempt to make friends. He seems content to be alone, relishing it, almost, as if he has spent too much time in others' company.

Here, his schedule is his own. There are no forced walks on the beach, no potions regimen. He comes and goes at will, but most often reclines in the lounge chair, knees drawn up, gazing forward at the horizon.

Potter writes in a Muggle notebook with a Muggle pen. He tears out leaves and folds them up. He closes his eyes in thought – in concentration – after completing a letter. Sometimes he folds the papers carefully into origami shapes. A crane. A swan. A dove. He bites his bottom lip as he works.

Severus wonders where – and how – Harry Potter learned the art of origami.

Potter keeps his wand beside his chair, on the little table provided for each of them. It rests atop the pile of textbooks. It is the holly wand the boy has always had. It is not the Elder wand, which Severus would have recognised anywhere. He wants to ask Potter about this, in particular, but does not cross the line.

Potter has taken to jogging on the beach, at surf's edge. Severus has passed him more than once. They exchange a nod, no more, no less. He is a novice runner, and he runs with what can only be described as exuberance. Running because he can, because he wants to. No longer running from anything, or toward anything. Running for the simple joy of running.

ooOoo

There comes a day, a moment, when Harry catches Severus admiring the very fit arse of the afternoon attendant.

A day when they each lift their eyes and find themselves staring at the other.

There is no question, no mistake.

Harry quirks an eyebrow, contemplating this new information.

Severus stares at Harry, lets his face relax into a small smile, then melts back into his chair and picks up a book.

Neither mentions it. Ever. It is there, but not between them.

ooOoo

When, at last, after two months, it is Severus' time to leave, he walks out to tell Harry goodbye. Offers his hand, takes Harry's within his own.

"Until we meet again," he says.

And Harry, rather impetuously, slides his hand up Severus' arm, gripping it at the elbow.

"Thank you," he says, and his words are heart-felt and true. He lowers his voice, looks into Severus' eyes. "Thank you for leaving me be."

And Severus – impetuously himself – leans in to press dry lips to forehead, to lightning bolt scar.

Wonders what kind of man Harry Potter will turn out to be. Thinks he might like to know the man he will become. Doubts he will ever have the opportunity.

Then turns, and leaves.

ooOoo

They'll meet again, many years later.

It will be the right time, for each of them.

They'll run into each other at a new pub in Diagon Alley. Harry will have just retired as Head of the MLE. Initially, they'll find common ground in their disgust with the new Minister of Magic, their enjoyment of a pint after work, their interest in a more quiet life away from London.

In time, Harry will move with Severus to a cottage outside a Muggle village in the South Downs, where they'll tame the untamed orchard, order the unkempt gardens and raise chickens for eggs and goats for milk.

Harry's children will visit, and in time, the grandchildren with them. Severus will grumble when they trample the radishes and turnips, and track mud into the kitchen, but he'll give remedial Potions lessons in the kitchen and not a single Potter child will ever again pulverise potions ingredients as Harry once did.

And they'll both remember those weeks the summer after the war, when they recuperated side by side, together but apart, will remember those first lessons in letting go, in moving on. In forgivness.

And one time, late at night, soon after moving into the cottage together, Harry will whisper to Severus as they lay tangled in each others' arms. _You let me be_ , he'll say. _You were the only one – ever – who just let me be._


End file.
